Dancing with the Old Lady, the Journey continues...

EPT Prague Day 6 : Day 2 Main Event and Feature Tables

Things felt like they were on the up and uppp when I showed up at the Hitlon Hotel today, headed towards my designated table and saw a sign that told us to report to the Feature Table. Alright. Not too shabby, right, as given that life gave me a CLEAR premonition of success just before I binked the tournament in BSOP Sao Paolo, I figured that the turn of events would not be cruel enough to have me defend my BB on the third hand on the feature table vs the suposedly WIDE as frack range of the chip leader/Poker Stars ambassador - I have no idea who the fellow is… -, flop the nut flush draw with A♥x on the Kxx♥♥♥, XR it 5x, somehow not get a snap-fold, get villain to shove on me with :

And... I... whiffed... :(

No worries though, as there is no better way to untilt/recover some EV then jumping into the 1.1k PLO 08 right, as there will be a TON of older spewtards and younger overly aggro clueless pros except…. Except I even managed to trap the clueless arrogant young victim of FPS, leave him with a mere 10% of scooping the high (no low draw) until…. He fracking gets there 😡 He would also be the one to eliminate me a couple of hours later (when his weaker A3xx holding got there) and I was therefore left busto, on the walk of shame and steaming like a 19th fracking century full vapor train 😡😡😡:p

It took me 30 minutes of pacing around the cold greyish streets of Prague before coming back to life with a smile… 😀 After all, I have the most amazing gf in the world - albeit emotional high maintenance 😉 ;

, get to travel the world, I speak multiple languages, am healthy as **** for a 47/soon to be 48 years old, am capable of taking down plentiful of fracking 20 something young lads with yearsss of MMA experience during sparring sessions yo, I have a BR on the verge of cracking the 7 digit threshold, am about to purchase a house in Les Laurentides in Quebec, got my shyt together, am a confident lad, happy and yet…. And yet I needed to repeat myself the above multiple times just to get myself off the ground and I oftentimes lack gratitude…. Ehhhh… :( And this lack of contentment, as I am forever striving for more…. Which comes as a blessing, of course, and a God damn curse, obviously!!! Why the malcontent, one would ask…. Perhaps one most go back into the childhood years, back towards the education that I received from my parents, that being the best in school, was simply not enough…. Am not sure, tbh, but it is definitely something to investigate more, especially for an analytical mind like mine that fully realizes how this life passes by so quickly, how we are so fracking vulnerable in the face of Variance and whatnot, and yet, this humility is not sufficient to spark Gratitude, what gives, ffs!?!?!?

Anyhow, on to the 1k NLHE tomorrow ; we got this yo

Dubnjoy, so so sorry to hear about the nut low breakup with L

but ver happy to hear about C!!!

You absolutely got this yo, thanks for posting sir [emoji41][emoji41]

I don't think that forever striving for more is something bad, is just what keeps us moving forward. The day you say 'I made it! I have everything I ever wanted!' is not far away from the day you die sitting in front of the TV.

The fact that you are aware of all the good stuff in your life and all that you achieved so far is what makes that crave for more a healthy pursuit and a driver for growth, and not a painful and hurting mental program that won't lead you to dying of old age in front of a massive TV but will make your heart explode one random tuesday afternoon after working and stressing yourself to the grave.

Best of luck in the rest of the series and thanks for bringing your write ups back to 2+2.

EPT Prague day 7 : 1k NLHE

2 bullets and I could not get anything fracking going, ehhhhh... :( I guess it didn't help that I had my nose stuck in my phone - albeit we did have a fun conversation going with a Brazalian and French lad yo -, that I was lacking that drive to fracking win, that none of my major bluffs got through, sigh and a thousand times sigh 😊. Oh well, tomorrow is the 2.5k Mystery Bounty, our last chance to make something out of this live MTT trip - am presently dead even ffs 😮:shocked:🙄 - and WE FRACKING GOT THIS YO

Hey friend, amazing to see you back active on the forum And C >>>>>>>>>>>> L, and it is not even close yo ♥

I definitely believe that striving for more is for the most part positive, but like many qualities/defaults in life, I definitely do not believe it should be treated in a binary matter and that there are several levels of nuances to this variable, me thinks... As an example, the ideal man for me - and I am happy to say that after 47/almost 48 years walking in this Bottom World, I am becoming/am nearing the 100% level of the person that I always wanted to be/become... -, is someone that has a STRONG amount of determination, ambitions and projects (and realizes most of them) etc., but that can also combine this desire for achieving more in harmony with being in the present moment ; I always come back to this image, but for me being able to sitting fracking down on a balcony during a random sunny afternoon sun accompanied by a loved one while sipping on coffee/mates/beer and being FRACKING HAPPY AND ONE WITH THE MOMENT AT HAND is a pure sign of your present happiness levels. That being said, while I am a pretty happy lad in general and strive in the latter mundane balcony moment, I fracking lack gratitude for the life of me!!! With everything that I have achieved thus far. With where I am in life in general. I don't know... I think part of it is the education/pressure I received, while another factor is being exposed to so many successful people in the poker world (both regs and recs). Then again, I have done extremely well as a midstakes reg. But not so much in comparison to highstakes regs/rich recs from the real world. And why should it matter... Especially when I spend most of my time in LATAM surrounded by struggling peeps... I don't know, but I am noticing that real life peeps have more gratitude than I do... End of digression.

EPT Prague Day 8 : 1.6k Mystery Bounty

What a strange day... from committing 85% of my chips on the second hand of the tournament with T high after reraising river 5.7x (and getting a fold), to losing a flip, a 75% and another flip close to the bubble which saw me stand up, thinking I was busto (but unexpectedly had 2bbs left), to sunrunning and winning a flip (6.5bbs), getting a jam through (9bbs), to winning another flip (20bbs) to cracking AA with 89s after losing a flip 🙄 To getting AQo to 4bet jam on my AA and seeing a Q89 J T runout 😮:shocked:🙄, to 4bet jamming JJ vs TT, seing the T86 flop, 9 turn and J river, to finally moving on to day itm with 15bbs (average 25bbs). I am hoping for a favorable table draw, having a few stacks covered and binking a few bounties yo. We got this

Sounds like a standard day at the office!

Yup, except us poker pros work in a nuthouse 😃:p🙄 Now to determine if it is a nutlowhouse or a nuthighhouse is the question... 😉

EPT Prague Day 9 : 1.6k Mystery Bounty day 2

And... that's all she wrote :(. Things were looking positive - almost predestined, I wanted to believe... - when I showed up at my table and noticed that I was the 4th chip leader thus having an unlikely4 smaller stacks than me at an 8 handed table, with a CLEAR chip leader and the 2nd and 3rd right within striking distance yo Except... the chip leader, thirsty for blood that would make your 19th century Bounty Hunter salivate like no tomorrow, was opening 70% of his hands/calling any all-ins and getting there with his trash, ehhhh :(. So within the first 4 hands played, we had already alas lost the 2 shortest stacks and I found myself barely covering the two other inferior stacks, ehhhh, so when the chip leader opened to 2bbs UTG and I looked down at ATo OTB, I decided that an estimated 67% range advantage, was sufficient enough chip EV wise, given that my bounty EV had been seriously damaged and that ICM is negligent at this stage. Of course, villain snap-called with KJo and ehhhh... fml :(

I am off to Montreal at 3am this evening for a couple of weeks. My dad just got diagnosed with prostate cancer, will be turning 79 soon and given that we now have a great relationship, something that was seriously lacking all those decades prior, I will be enjoying our father and son time (my mom will join us in 5 days). Family time is priceless yo ♥ And so is our lifespan/ticking clock in this bottom world, right, so it will be good to finally step away from this 2 card/4 card game of ours, and get back to existential emotions like love, life, death, father-son dynamics and what it all fracking means in the end and all... 😉

I should remain semi-active on this blog moving forward ; nothing compared to yesteryears, of course, but given that C and I will be staying in separate flats (she owns her place and cares for her mom), I will thus be a bachelor from Monday-Wedenesday before she shows up for the Weekend, meaning that I will have much more time than back when I was 24/7 a family man with L, and should hence be blogging perhaps weekly... 😉

I will also be back to write more in details about my goals for 2025, but, spoiler (without being one really 😃😉🙄) : a big part of it will be training in preparation for an eventual MMA fight yo The odds of it ever happening are probably south of 25-50%, but I will nonetheless motivate my training by giving it my ALL as if an imminent brawl until death depended on it yo Disclaimer : I probably could fight within a year if I chose to square off solely in a Muay Thai dual, but given that I want to be a complete fighter and all and that my BJJ skills are severely lacking, I will need to get myself on that ground, roll around Jiu Jitsu style with dirty stinky Peruvian men (and women!) this winter, ehhhhh :(

If not, projects will be your standard spirituality in 2025 (a Vipassana retreat and 2-3 Ayahuasca Ceremonies), getting back my online poker grind on track, traveling within Peru and, most importantly, spending quality time with the absolutely-mostest-topest-bestest-firstest woman in the Worldly World in C, of course ♥ In fact, before meeting her, I had never ever felt like "she is the one♥", until that magical spark happened with her 😀. So yeah, establishing progressively a union with her will be #1 goal and... eventually getting a fracking dog yo 😃:p😉

sorry about your Dad. I hope you can enjoy Montreal.

Thx bro And I did enjoy Montreal immensely, mainly the time alone with my dad where we got to connect strongly, something that was not always present during my teens/hippie years, but both of us have made effort to meet somewhere in the middle, and lo and behold, I - of course 🙄 - finally realized to what extent we are so fracking similar in so many areas ♥

Am presently in Lima. Update incoming this week...

Life Goals 2025 Style Yo

A new year = setting new objectives, right 😉. The good thing is I usually set them as realistic albeit a little ambitious, but manage to achieve the grand majority (in the tune of 70%+) of them yo And since separating with L a good 10+ months ago, this is actually the first time that I am settling back into a routine : I will be in Lima for 6 months until I make it to WSOP Vegas at the end of June yo 😀

- Being a Loving Person: Perhaps it might sound trivial to insist upon this category, but because it remains the important one - albeit perhaps simplistic in terms of life goals... -, I will make it our first category 😉. Being happy. A loyal, faithful and a sound support for C (in every aspect of our relationship). A good son. Brother. Friend. And fellow human being. Lest we not forget y'all ♥

Online Poker : After being restricted from playing on Unibet, I will need to reestablish a solid online hourly once again. I have found a promising site and should easily be capable of crushing it, but am also looking for another site to accompany it/of always having a plan B in the back pocket 😉 And also reestablishing a grinding routine, as, if Unibet had Rakeback milestones thus forcing you into putting a certain amount of volume and oftentimes a good 25-30% beyond what I intended to do weekly, now I am left with pure personal motivation, no more. So aiming for 25h weekly grinding 6 tables should be the new goal yo

Live Poker : My Lima goals will be minor ones : binking a Peruvian flag on my Hendon Mob ; grinding a steady 3-4h weekly at the Marriot for pocket money for the week, live entertainment, free food + drinks and a massage at the table. But more importantly : giving myself a good shot at a 6-7 digit live MTT score in Vegas, Montreal or wherever else the circuit route might take me this year I also would like to be within the top 500 on the Canadian Hendon Mob list, which would require approximately 80k in cashes in 2025 yo

MMA Training : Now we are talking real goals!!! 😉. So, as previously mentioned, I will be challenging myself to be a complete (enough) fighter within the next 1-2 years in order to be able to square off in the Octagon yo Which means mainly working on my Jiu Jitsu, and especially takedown defense, but while also improving my Muay Thai chops to thus increase my potential victory odds And getting my cardio in resilient enough shape to be fairly strong for the length of 3 x 5 minute rounds. So a ton to work to do, really. But given that I was already in the top 25 percentile in my MMA gym despite only having 2 years of experience, the challenge seems feasible. And that I am seemingly learning at a 10% percentile clip. So assuming my late 40s body doesn't completely break down before this combat happens (I would be 49 years old if it does), I believe this to be a viable challenge, albeit most unlikely to happen... Also, a disclaimer :

Spirituality : Along with your standard daily 2h of meditation and one ten day Vipassana retreat this year, I want to do 2-3 Ayahuasca ceremonies. This year and yearly moving forward. Being in Peru is obviously the perfect setting for such goals, so I will hence dip deeper into the Spirit World yo 😀.

Volunteer Work : This one is unlikely to even start this year, but it remains of essence towards what I am advancing : to be able to give back to folks in need. Perhaps here in Lima... In a poorer barrio... Cooking food/running a Soup Kitchen... Who knows!!! But I had promised to life that if I had binked 7 digits (or close to) during my recent live MTT stint, I was going to just play poker recreationally and make the latter my sole goal. And to be completely honest, part of me aches to have to go back grinding online like I have done so professionally for 14 odd years 😊

Peace y'all ♥

Glad to hear your new relationship is working out, and congrats on working out on your MMA quest. Better you than me on that journey 😀

Thx friend ♥

On the love front : this relationship will need a FRACKING ton of work from both of us, if not it will fail. Insecurities from her past relationship keep popping up, which makes it EXTREMELY HARD AF for yours truly, unfortunately. The good part is that she agreed to do a Vipassana retreat. Or an Ayahuasca ceremony. Or both. Or whatever it takes to transcend her inner stuff, as she is a highly confident woman in life in general, but not so much in her love relationships 😊

On the MMA front : I might be giving up on Jiu Jitsu, and thus strictly focussing on Muay Thai moving forward... There is a reason why I always chose to go to my MMA dojo when Muay Thai or boxing was being taught, but avoided at all cost the Jiu Jitsu schedules : it simply bores the living shyt out of me!!! It is a bit too technical. Which does not really use my strongest aspects, which is my strength, heart and tenacity. I will be 48 within a few weeks and part of wanting to improve my ground, is this idealistic vision of becoming a well-rounded and (almost) perfect fighter, you know, as opposed to just sticking to what I love, what I excel it and just striking away yo

This Game that We have come to Love/Hate

"Has the game passed me by" mutters in doubt that inner voice/that little devil that is guaranteed to pop up every time I hit a prolong downswing :(. Except this time around, I have come to redefine what prolong means unfortunately, sigh and a thousand and one times sigh 😮:shocked:😊. As a reminder : I have been on a 10k downswing since late February which, even in accordance to the incredibly wild and unpredictable variance of PLO, is still worrying af :p. That being said, I had crush like no tomorrow in Jan-Feb of 2024, to the extent that I still managed to finish with a semi-acceptable winrate (online) by the end of the year, a number that of course happens to be half/a third of what I was netting in my peak years, but that remains nonetheless an acceptable base salary moving forward given my luck with investments and the state of the online games. Now, the fact that I find myself having to grind a new poker site with a much lower RB deal that I use to have, adds to the uncertainty of the equation, obviously. Hence why I must ask myself again : "has the game passed me by?".

This question is as old as the game itself and has been thrown around in the poker community since I started playing professionally, shortly before Black Friday in 2011, which, let's recall, was seen an apocalyptic end to online poker with the poker Gods striking us mere (virtual) mortals with all their THUNDEROUS MIGHT, right 😮:shocked: It was a time of doubt. The beginning of the end, many thought. And an adequate moment to get out of the game, not dive deeply into it.

Not being one for following the tides, I obviously listened to not a single soul and, against the general consensus, proceeded to accumulate monies yo That being said, most of it came from an extremely soft live game, north of nowhere in the Yukon a few kms away from the Arctic Circle, a game that had not a single professional partake in it and within which the faces never changed, to the extent that my exploits, personally adjusted for each player, worked out incredibly effectively in the short, medium and long term yo - think of a WR of 25+bbs an hour over the span of 14 years yo Crushing online was a different story though, and if I (too) comfortably accepted a smallish hourly in online MTTs for my first few professional years, I started to absolutely crush the virtual cash games when I switched from MTTs back in 2017 at a 2-3x hourly that I had managed live, which not only increased my WR beyond expectations that I had set for myself, but gave me the absolute flexibility to travel freely the world without a financial worry yo And I maintained this (crushing) tangent up until 2023-2024 where my WR took a slight dip (and then a bigger one), but at nevertheless acceptable levels.

The good news is that those peak years saw me invest wisely - HODL, gold and safe market investments yo -, never indulge in a lol look-at-me-Balla-approach-Oh-too-common-in-the-world, so I hence find myself in this ironic and curious position where playing poker professionally has become questionable while my BR has significantly gradually increased

. Anyhow, to come back to our narrative : every time that the question "is the dream of playing poker for a living still alive?" has existentially popped up in the poker world, I have loled it off, shrugged the question away, as even if such was the case for the majority of the aspiring pros, my WR simply asserted otherwise yo - and perhaps I was the exception to the general rule... But come 2025, the question is stronger then ever : "has the game passed me by?"

Think AI. RTA. Inflation (while playing at the same stakes). New ways to cheat. The general population getting better. And perhaps indeed my golden years have come to a screeching halt! What I do know though, is that I am emotionally (and almost financially) ready to move on from the game, that this inner fire to forever crush has since left me and that even if I am still going through the motions of studying sufficiently, preparing myself mentally for the grind on a daily basis and all, I do believe that the light is dimming at the end of the 2-4 card tunnel... But then again, if such is the case, the question becomes : what awaits next...???

In the short-middle term, I will be focussing on establishing an acceptable WR online ; as far as live goes, if I had initially planned not to invest more than 50k in BIs and mainly during WSOP Vegas, by all appearances I will be firing twice as much in series across Peru (a small stakes series next month), Vegas (both WSOP and WPT Wynn Championship), Montreal (WSOPC and WPT) and Europe (not sure which series, but ones that involve exploring a new county yo ), as the second half of 2025 will be spent away from C/and hence traveling somewhat freely 😊

Peace

Da Routine is Back Yo

An excellent week in the books as, firstly and perhaps most importantly, we are now back in the black yo Yup, I went on a 6k+ upswing which, might not seem as much compared to my standard lol weekly - 4 card 😉 - swings of the past few years, but considering that I wanted to pull another deposit-a-very-smallish-amount-and-withdraw-a-large-6-digit-amount like I once did on Unibet

, so I hence find myself playing mainly smaller games, 5-6 tables of 200 with 1-2 tables of PLO 500), with the majority of my action focussed on the great game of Omaha 😀. Now that my BR has significantly increased on this new site and that I get to lower somewhat my variance by running it twice (most opponents agree to do so/have their settings automated in accepting the double runouts), I will be playing 500 PLO once again with eventual shots at 1k. As far as holdem goes, I am afraid that it will be mainly to fulfill enough volume/tables going and mostly at the 200 level (with infrequent tables of 500). I am presently in the lab with my 4 card game and will not study the 2 card game until perhaps April (and then study holdem MTTs a couple of months before the WSOP).

Anyhow, it was a satisfying week on the felt, my confidence is coming back and my attitude towards playing poker professionally has changed (for now...) given the softness of this new site (albeit with lower RB) ; let's hope it stays this way 😉

In other areas Off the felt/in the Muay Thai ring, it has also been quite the successful and uplifting vibe : after visiting 7 dojos overall, I have finally chosen one which I am quite satisfied with ; the gym is nice, spacious, with a ton of (various sizes of) boxing bags, a ring to sparr in, a shower, weights/Dumbbells to warm up with and some very warm and charismatic teachers ♥ One thing that I had to come to terms with though, is that the Muay Thai courses do not distinguish in between beginners and advanced students (unlike the Jiu Jitsu courses), so I thus elected to pay extra and get private courses instead of training with noobs, kids and teenagers yo It is 4x the price, but still very affordable. These will be twice weekly but I will still be training 2-3h on my own as to put to execution the newly learned techniques (my next AirBnB has a gym and a boxing bag yo ), and to continue my body-building and whatnot. So yeah, am pretty content in that area of life as well.

I have the impression that it will not take much time to get a solid social circle going : first of all, I connected very strongly with C's family/friends - her mom not withstanding, sigh and a thousand times sigh 😊. And am getting quite close to a male friend of hers. Moreover, I crossed paths with a foreigner Muay Thai student who is about my age and while I usually befriend more locals than expats, this fellow (from Texas, but with a seemingly Arab background...?) looks very open-minded, nice af, has also learned Spanish in Argentina and seems to have had quite the interesting life experience... So yeah, nice to rapidly expand a little bit the social activities and at a rate EXPONENTIALLY faster then I did in BsAs yo

We will be going to the beach south of Lima for this long WE with some of C's friends ; it should be fun times

Be well all ♥

Sounds things are looking up on all fronts. Good to hear.

Da Beast

In Rocky Balboa - which is technically the 6th film of the franchise -, Sylvester Stallone came back with a critical smash hit after the (critical) flops that had been the previous 3 installments (since Rocky 2, basically). And one scene in the movie that really shook me upon rewatching it last year, is when the character of Rocky, who we all know to be as humble as can be, self-erasing, compassionate and an overall very nice fellow, finally cracks and reveals why he still wants to square off in the ring at such an advance age : "BECAUSE I HAVE A BEAST IN ME 😮:shocked:!!!" screams out the usually mild-mannered Rocky : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et_Bdct1...

Those words jabbed me right in the fracking face 😮:shocked: as I also recognize this same beast that roams freely inside of me, untamed, growling nonstop to be unleashed, to fracking lash out towards all of life's obstacles 😊. You see, gone are the those youthful 90s, AKA those juvenile grudge days of screaming along to Rage Against the Machine lyrics and thus canalizing all of that inner angst towards society, injustices or whatever societal issues that were popular to protest against at the times ; but with maturity (and the personal responsibility that comes with it), one must accept that the Demon was always alas internal 😊 Safely locked up. Prompt to erupt at any God forsaken instant 😮:shocked:😡

Here comes into play MMA's Hexagone : this unspoken region in the dead centre of the Labyrinth where only fringe angry creatures head out to discover 😉. You see, we are hermanos at heart, shake hands before exchanging blows, bloody hug each other once the dust settles and after a winner is naturally chosen. These bloody brawls have always been an intrinsic (and anthropological) part of civilization since Greece... Or the Mayas. Or whatever Civilization, because everyone knows that every (bloody) road leads to Rome, right... 😉 😃

It is better to be a Warrior in a Garden, than a Gardener in a War (Miyamoto Musashi)

I am ashamed to admit that over the span of the past year - or more precisely, since being exposed to an overly complicated separation with L that lead to a ton of anger -, uncountable were the occasions where all Hell (almost) broke loose, alas and a thousand and one times alas 😊 :( Sure, Buenos Aires changed me. And one needs to fight for every inch of space in LATAM. And Argentino's vertiginous economical fall was no walk in the park. Nonetheless, I have come to accept that a physical confrontation only belongs in the Ring. In a controlled and regulated setting. Securely tucked within 4 ropes, as to contain both warrior's rage. And far away from the streets yo.

Thx bro ♥

Peace y'all ♥

NSOP Chiclayo

On the poker front, things have not been too great, unfortunately. If you folks remember, we had just got back into the black for 2025 by a couple of thousand bucks, but... alas and a gazillion times alas, the swonnngggsss in the 4 card game are just HUMONGOUS af 😮:shocked:🙂 So yeah, since the last poker update, we proceeded to drop 5k+, but managed to recover 40% of it this week yo The exciting news is that I have included a couple of 1k PLO tables in my grind, along with the standard 500 and 200 PLO tables (the NLHE have mainly been of the 200 variant, at least until I get back into the holdem lab in March-April).

In other (semi) exciting news : I will be playing a small - ehhhh tiny af 😊 - series in Chiclayo starting this evening called NSOP (National Series of Poker). I am in fact at the airport waiting for my flight right now. The BIs range within the lol minuscule levels of 100-400$ (CAD$), no joke!!! But when this series will come to Lima (and if I am still kicking around...), the BIs do thankfully double-triple at least. Nonetheless, it should be fun I have booked an apartment in a building with a gym, so I will maintain 45 minutes of daily training yo I will try to update daily this week as to keep my daily grind in check, as well as provide (hopefully...) entertaining material for this thread, of course 😉

Anyhow, talk later y'all

Peace

NSOP Chiclayo DAY 1

Even if I had set the good ole iphone alarm clock at 10:00am, at 9:05 I am wide awake in bed, and thus accept my fate and proceed to sit str8 and meditate for an hour. I throw on some pants, a grinding t-shirt, toss a few fruits in the mixer, some yogurt, milk to thin that shyt down and shred that mamafracker into a smoothie yo 😃. I hop into the Uber, cross the city of Lima towards its international airport - on the outskirts of the slums of Callao, where I plan on training Muay Thai starting April with folks that know how to strike, you know .

I end up waiting at the wrong gate - who would of phunked that they would offer 2 flights at exactly 13:00 on the dot for Chiclayo, one of them at gate 10 and the other at gate B10... 🙄 -, run to the right departure gate after the flight agent gets a good lol at me, get there for the last call, sweating balls, but ultimatelly avoiding missing my flight yo :p

The meditation on the flight is smoothing and prepares me for the lonnnggg night of grinding ahead (I plan on hopping into the day 1A/ AKA the first flight of the 250$ Main) and, alas, the horrible check-in experience that would ensue... :(

. Nonetheless, I get to sweat it out/expulse the rage in a rapid 35 minute gym session, jump in a cold shower, put on some live MTT grinding clothes, hop into an Uber, and head out towards the Wyndham/NSOP we goes yo

After talking to the organizers for a bit, I buy into the Main, wait at the table for the (1h delayed) event to start, but alas, only a single other player shows up 😊. So there we are, waiting for a third valiant soul to join us... 20 minutes go by, AKA 2/3 of the first 30 minute level of the potential 15levels to be played today, before a semi decent reg joins us.

Shorthanded (which is definitely my area of comfort ) and sitting in between a weak reg and a half arse suicidal maniac, life is good yo And then a 4th and 5th player rapidly join us and while the latter are definitely on the weak tighter side, I failed to fully assess it during the first few rounds and find myself oblige to pay off on the river with nutted bluff-catchers that would of been - sigh... 😊 - snap-folds 30 minutes later/with enough observed HHs at hand. That being said, even if I kick myself for not having found the fold button, I am not one from wanting to deviate TOO FAR from the top of my bluff-catching range (with nutted blockers) vs unknowns when I don't have enough info gathered on the new villains, even if one can safely deviate extensively in general when playing low-stakes fields/these player types. After one hour though, I do get to find these extremely exploitative folds easily vs obvious lines/betting sizes ♣♦♥♠

A couple levels later, a solid pro sits down along with a predictable lowstakes overtly agro pro (to my direct left), common in 1-2 and 2-5 live cash games. The latter was very easy to deal with despite having position on me ; for example, I eventually proceed to open 2bbs K♠J♣ UTG, he would go on and3bet me 3.5x in UTG1, only to (happily) see him have to fold to my 2.6x 4bet 😆

I am now the chip leader. We are down to 5 players. It is 1:00am and I figure that I have about 3h to go before reaching blinds of 2.5k-5k levels, which will be the last potential level possible this evening and also bring us to 5bbs when having the equivalent of a starting stack (and the level that tournaments usually reach a min cash in), but given that we are severely shorthanded, I figure that all those chips will be in front of me probably a couple of levels before we reach that deadline... After all, it is just a matter of time : I am by far the best player, have positional advantage on the only other decent player at the table and I am focussed af after today's meditation session/Gym session

Far behind us is that tilt of having hero called weak tight players in the first couple of blind levels... In fact, that mistake would not even amount to a single BB anymore, as I scoop in more chips, apply the right amount of pressure, am always aware of the stack sizes and get all my bluffs through every single time, be it preflop (a few 3-4 bets) or post (multi-barreling with the right range advantage/repping the correct holdings). Before I even realize it, I (finally) win an all-in (I had been 1/5 in trying to eliminate villains thus far), 66 > A♣J♣, the staff approaches and as we are about to start our HU match (2 players left from the original 10), we are suddenly informed that we are bagging up for the evening!!! "Oh really!?!" I say out loud, "they must of said so while I was being sleepy/not paying attention to all the Spanish being spoken by all the different parties..." I think to myself.... Which is great, tbh, as, as much as I feel that it would be a matter of minutes/of a couple of levels before eliminating villain a chunky 85%+ of the time (I have a bit more than 2 to 1 in chip advantage, but his game is pretty darn weak and passive, thus (almost) making it risk free), the guy is actually a pretty darn nice fellow and I sincerely don't want to bust him, even if it costs me a sizable amount of chips/a little equity in the process. After all, the tournament is far from over, I am no longer about destroying souls and I have been lonnnggg enough in this game/made enough monies, that strict EV is no longer the end goal, you know... ♥

We bag up (returning to 75bbs as the lol present chip leader), shake hands, call it an evening and head out into the Chiclayan twilight...

Peace out y'all

NSOP Day 2 : Mystery Bounty 325$

As seems to be the case, cards did not hit the felt until well past 4pm : folks definitely like late starts in these parts 🙄

And it was not easy sailing to start off the event : within a few rounds and after 3betting K♣3♣ from the SB vs the button, my tripple barrel (on Q flop, turned fd and river blank - a little punty) - all-in led to... my 2nd bullet 😉

I got put back at the same table which turned out to be the most reg heavy, unfortunately. But like pretty much all pros at this level, they are quite predictably unbalanced, lean towards the agro side, and made my 4bet bluff OTB with K8o vs the SB 3bet quite effective yo 😃

An interesting situation popped up several rounds later when I opened A8o in the CO, villain (the same one) 3bet me as they lol like to do repeatedly at these stakes, and as I am about to click it back 2.35x (we are fairly shallow at this point), I misclick and only raise it by 1.45x... sigh 😊. The dealer corrects the amount, motions as if I meant to call, and I exclaim "nah, nah, I messed up, I meant to raise it!!!" I snap, quite angry with myself for misclicking/and also wanting to pursue the act of being and thus in fact keeping (ironically) the initiative. The floor is called as another player protests and believes that the bet is open/it was a raise. After it is confirmed a call, a flop of Q♦8♦x shows up which, while I do hit it somewhat, it still remains a bit better for villain's range... But given that we are repping the absolute top of our range and have an okayish blocker, I cbet 30% pot

Tbh, I have not been given a lot to work with card-wise all day and in fact, the only reason I manage to survive/stay close to average in chips throughout, is because of well-timed bluffs and frankly, very creative plays. Until I pick up AA UTG, min raise it and lo and behold : an agro reg from the SB rips it in for 22bbs with... A9o 😆

After busting villain, we show up at the final table as the chip leader yo

Spoiler

Show

My dumb looking face is because the photographer kept telling me to lower myself as to not block the view of the shorty behind me 🙄:p

And... long story short as it is 3:30 am and I need to meditate/rest : I GII as a 80% favorite, QQ♣ vs KT on a J♣T♣x, but lose, sigh, to the absolute worst player at the table (probably the tournament...) 😡 I do manage to finish 6th for lol 1.25 BIs, but a far cry from first that had an equity of roughly 25BIs

Back at it tomorrow yo ; we got this

NSOP Day 3 : 225$ PKO Holdem (AKA the dynamics)

Well, I managed to bink a couple of bounties (and get some of my initial BI back), but then ran my A♦K♦ into AA, 33bbs effective, ehhhh 😊. But I do not want to talk about live MTTs and about how every time I get deep for a potential decent 6 figure score, I run into it/get smacked in the face by negative variance - even if in this particular series, I am barely down and have a ton of EV locked up with a solid 75BBs for day 2 with 20% of the field left Nope. I wanna talk about it the different dynamics that occur in small time series as opposed to the highstakes one a la Vegas, Aussie Millions (back then) or other 5-10k events.

You see, in first world countries and within the secure and publicized boundaries of known high-stakes series, it is quite common to fraternize with CEOs, multi-millionaires/billionaires, celebrities and whatnot as they are looking to either challenge themselves competitively, splash away (and be seen/heard doing so) or indulge in whatever quirks they may desire!!! In third world countries where the monies for tournament BIs is not easily accessible, one alas encounters much more gangstas/dirty money 😊

On Monday, when I arrived fresh off the flight and hopped right away into Day 1 of the ME, an older (mid 50s) fellow with robust facial features showed up for (very) late registration. Instinctively, I caught myself thinking "He is the last fellow I would try to f**k over😮:shocked:". Even if he was clearly at a somewhat advanced age, he gave off this vibe of "I will leave you dead in the fracking ditch son!!!", which is definitely not a feeling I get often - if at all... - and the last time around was in a series in Rosario, Argentina, where the fellow (also in his late 50s) literally told the table (but it was clearly directed at me) of having dumped recently a corpse on the highway, ffs :shocked:😮:shocked:😮:p (he would go on to repeat this story an hour later, just to make sure to get his point through to me). This Chiclayan drug Lord gave up the same vibes. But was sitting across the table from me. And had yet to (indirectly) threaten my life. And, in fact, would meticulously observe my actions every time I was playing a massive pot and (most of the time) bluffing and thus deliberately controlling my motions.

It turned out that my suspicions were (most likely) confirmed about (let's call him) Mr X : the way that people flocked around him all through the week, constantly walked up to the table to salute him, wait behind in (total) respect before beginning to interact with him, the hot and young women pleadingly (and metaphorically) kissing his hand, the special treatment manifested by the staff, the management and the personal soldiers that watch over his back.

When I showed up at the table today, I was seated in between him and one of his seemingly fake-tough-guy-but-prompt-to-literally-stab-you-in-the-fracking-back gangsta fellow who clearly gave me a sneer when I showed up. Thankfully though, his boss has taking a liking into me yo : something about being respectful with him from the get go and about being a (somewhat) successful mid-highstakes grinder - the rumor gets around rapidly, especially because, much like in Argentina, I am the only (non-Latin) foreigner.

The curious thing about Mr X - and now, my read might be absolutely off, but I don't think so, not after playing with him all day/having seen him for 3 days str8 - is he seems, at least on the surface, willfully like a nice guy. He deliberately tries to treat people well. Is personal. Respectful. He tries to keep his emotions in check

in a stoic sort of way. He is not charismatic by any means and obviously attracts all this respect by pure power, but seriously seems like a fellow that is trying to be good, according to his perspective and his code, of course. As opposed to his soldiers that seem frantic. Unpredictable. Angry af. Juvenile.

Curiously Mr X sighed out loud when my AKs ran into AA today, publicly exclaiming his esteem for me and maintaining that stoical Business Man image that he has surely worked on for years now. As I was walking away from the table, I got myself thinking about how life is so fracking complicated and how tribulations of this fracking Bottom World probably exposed X earlier on to multiple emotional scars which toughened the living shyt out of him. Perhaps one of the rare actual choices that he had to make in his life (beyond survival of the fittest/the streets) was to be a pleasant being... That being said, and it is worth to repeat it : he is one of the rare individuals that I would not dare to cross!!!

Peace y'all, we all got a lot of inner work to do ♥

I'm thinking about the possibility that rather than you facing Mr X HU for the Main Event Title in Peru (I think that's where you are) what actually end-ups happening is that you face him in the Muay Thai Ring. And you'll just be by yourself in between rounds, with no coach to give you a pep-talk and put your mouth guard back in etc., while he's in his corner surrounded by his various "carers". And I reckon Mr X will probably lose the fight (because he doesn't have time/need for training etc.) but still will be given the "win" on some local technicality. But, it won't matter, because Mr X being a genuine guy will let you have the prize money, even though he doesn't need it. Unfortunately you'll have to concede that the "trophy" always had his name on it --- I mean X does mark the spot, right?

NSOP Day 4 : 400$ lol Highroller

Once again, I easily navigated through the field, showed up as the chip leader at the final table and... I couldn't get the job done :( I was pretty card dead on the bubble and even if I did act accordingly by trying to steal with broadway blockers, for example, I got shoved repeatedly by peeps who are not the most ICM aware/were perhaps playing back at me, ehhhhh 😊. And then I found myself having to fold in a very awkward triple barrel spot by the (at the time) 2nd chip leader... And then finally shoved my final chips when I was last in chips (but the 4th and 3rd were a mere few bbs away) for 10.1bbs when UTG (2nd chip leader) opened for 2.5x (like he always did) and the CO flatted (chip leader) ; I figured that I was flipping most of the time, the added 2.5bbs was significant enough to take this spot and given that I was last in chips/was aiming for a top 3 spot, I decided to take it.

. I am not sure to what extent my cash game thinking translates to MTTs, even if I was last in chips and the payout is top heavy... I just don't know. Part of me - the results-oriented part 😉 -, is victim of hindsight thinking that "I could of laddered up"... But then again, it is not as if recs are making tremendously awful mistakes with stacks of 12-15bbs five handed... Anyhow

Haha, I love it! Except I could fathom squaring off vs one of his soldiers instead - which I would absolutely take pleasure in doing so in a controlled environment - and easily KOing him after safely analyzing his fighting style, patiently pouncing on his weaknesses and eventually wearing him out (Justin Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister fighting vs a Conservative Senator prior to being the leader of the Liberals) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuSpZ3_5...

All that being said, MrX was actually the 2nd chip leader and the one who eliminated me this evening QQ > 77 😊

Peace

Hey folks, I will be posting my final update on the NSOP this evening (or tomorrow...), but beforehand I have a favor to ask for anyone that has any legal knowledge about the following generic situation. You see, despite having never updated any of my MTTs scores while grinding live MTTs in Argentina, Codigo Poker, which was the major news outlet covering the events in Argentina (and apparently in LATAM), has effed up as far as my profile goes ; when you do a Google online search of my name in these parts, the second result that pops up is my name along with Codigo Poker and these words underneath :

Se trata de un jugador que ya posee un historial criminal y ahora está acusado de estafar a otros jugadores., which roughly translates to "This is a player who already has a criminal record and is now accused of defrauding other players."

Upon a short investigation and after using other search engines, it became clear that this was simply a headline to an article (about an alleged criminal and scammer) found on Codigo poker : https://codigopoker.com/noticias-general....

As you can tell, this is a headline of an article of importance found on Codigo poker (and when you search my name on other search engines, other Headlines appear beneath my name). Anyhow, I have messaged Codigo Poker on facebook, sent a few emails, but have yet to receive a reply after 30h now. I have reported the link to Google (and will report this evening as a legal issue). My question is : do I have a legal stance vs Codigo Poker? I am thinking of contacting a lawyer Thursday if this issue is not resolved smoothly. Thoughts?